Corsica

Working on the Naturist’s Guide to Corisca, so I thought it might be good to put up a collage of photos from our visits to this naturist haven from our several visits over the past fifteen years. An island with France sensibilities toward naturism, Italian influences for cuisine, and all with a quirky Corsican twist makes for a great nakation.

Tahiti beach

Linguizzetta beach

U-Furu

Hiking on Corsica

Tahiti beach

Linguizzetta beach

U-Furu

La Chiappa

La Chiappa

Hiking in Corsica

La Chiappa

Tahiti beach

Tahiti beach

Hiking in Corsica

Corsica Ferries

Hiking on Corsica

Hiking on Corsica

U-Furu

Linguizzetta beach

U-Furu

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My blog is just over five years old now, and after an incredibly busy year with great periods of sparsity for managing new posts with fresh topics, I’ve exploited a bit of down-time in recent weeks to catch up. In doing so, it occurs to me that people rarely click back beyond a page or two of a blog, if that. In the blogosphere, everything is more or less in present tense, until it simply ceases to exist altogether.

And thus, it occurs to me that my sudden influx of new readers – resulting simply from a sudden increased presence amidst all things naturist on the internet – have little or no idea who we are, how we found our way into naturism, and why we would seek ways to promote such a thing.

First visit to La Jenny

Seems our story is unusual, as it was my wife who made the first foray into social nudity, and well before she was my wife, or even an acquaintance. Though we attended the same university in California, we had not yet met when she was enrolled in a Human Sexuality course that included an action research project. Most students stayed pretty closely on script, visiting a home for women, or a Planned Parenthood clinic. But my (future-tense) wife and a friend decided to venture out to a famous nude beach near Santa Cruz to see what all the fuss about. The was the early 80s, mind you, when the last wafts of free love were still blowing south from the Haight-Ashbury. They weren’t out looking for that, or anything else in particular. They simply thought it would make for an interesting term paper.

We had been dating for some time when she first told me this story, which immediately caught my attention given my proclivity for home nudity as a kid growing up in a very conservative household. My father would frequently rant about the newspaper stories that gave the play-by-play about a nearby nudist watering hole, and I think he was genuinely giddy when the police finally raided the place and sent all the hippies away to find their clothes.

First visit to La Jenny

Suffice it to say, I was nude-curious, but it would actually be another three years until I would work up the courage to bare all, with all the typical concerns about male arousal, wandering eyes, and comparison shopping! We were married by then, and it was immediately evident my wife had – unknowingly at the time – married a serial naturist. Neither of us had the body types that played well in a swim-suit, nor were either of us fashion conscious enough to even join in that game. But naked on the beach became an immediate and persuasive common denominator that would come to define many other values in our relationship, beginning with this unusual thing that we shared with each other, to the way we’d eventually raise our children in regard to body acceptance and self-esteem.

It is worth noting that at this point of our lives, children arrived early, and money was tight! And beaches in Northern California were always a crap-shoot even at the height of summer, as it might be 90°F five miles inland, but round the bend near the ocean, and suddenly you’re shrouded in fog! We found a quirky hot-spring establishment that was close enough for an occasional Friday night date, and if we could save up enough for a real splurge, we’d visit a brand new little nine-room inn called Desert Shadows resort in Palm Springs, California. I remember fretting over our first visit, trying desperately to read the subtext on a primitive 1993 website (remember those?) as to where you could and could not be naked, and is there an implicit expectation that we will be doing more there than lying naked by the pool? We watched the place grow up, and even took the kids a time or two, and it was… “OK.” Except for the part when they would ask, “Where are the other kids, mom? Thought you said there would be kids here.”

La Jenny, France

We also checked out a couple traditional nudist clubs in the Bay Area, then later, on the east coast, far enough inland to be warm, and remote enough to be naked. But almost without fail, not only were we the token familial unit on the grounds that day, but we would be saddled with the sales pitch of “You can come three times, then you need to become members.” Membership might have involved a commitment to helping with spring cleaning, or to serve chili at the cook-out dinner, but it almost always required a hefty annual membership fee that at the time was roughly equivalent to two months of our food budget. Perhaps a worthy investment for some, but beyond our means at the time, especially when we knew that life with young kids – at least for us – did not mean every weekend at the nudist club, particularly since we couldn’t find one where our kids didn’t feel like Thing One, Two, and Three.

In the meantime, I had been corresponding with a guy named Don (Cadonick, I think was his on-line forum name) on a server called Compuserve. Even in its time, it was basic technology, and one had the sense that when you hit send, a pigeon carried the message from the back of your computer to that of the receiver several states away. Slow, cumbersome, and awkward were the defining traits of the platform, but it was about the only place I could find an internet message board about social nudity, or… naturism.

Naturist Dordogne, France

This guy Don was married to a French woman. He read my post about my frustrations in searching for a place where we could practice naturism as a family. A place where we would all feel safe, where the amenities would be a bit nicer than a 1950s church camp, and where the children would feel like they’re part of a real community with families like ours, doing things that families do! After bantering back and forth on the topic over several posts, he finally gave me the clear directive that what I was looking for most certainly did exist, but I was looking on the wrong continent. He pointed me to a place called La Jenny, west of Bordeaux on the south Atlantic coast of France, suggesting my efforts were futile until I found a way to get there and see it for myself.

Remember, we were long on children, and short on cash! So it took several years until my wife and I could make our first reconnaissance trip to naturist France. We checked out St. Tropez, (Yeah, I guess!) and the famous, or infamous Cap d’Agde (Oh! Well… That’s something!), then finally made our way to Village Naturiste La Jenny, where Don’s words immediately rang true. Naked or clothed, this was a beautiful holiday center for families from all over Europe where everything happened in (at least) four languages, and as weather permitted, most things required no clothing. Nirvana!

Corsica, France

Our children were near adolescence before we could cobble together enough frequent flyer miles and loose change to get a family of five to France, but from then on, we somehow found a way to make the trek every other year, until things got a bit better yet and we could go every year. Strangely, we never morphed into one of those “naked at home” families you read about in naturist magazines. For our kids, naturism was a vacation in Europe kind of thing, and the day we would get home, they would essentially revert to traditional American household modesty values. That was OK with us. In the last place, nudity was simply not a thing – one way or the other.

Around 2004 I put together a website about our family naturist travels, and started getting more involved in various message boards that far exceeded the technology that had been offered by Compuserve. I lost track of my friend Don and never had a chance to tell him that we had made it to France, and that he was right! In the meantime, the activist part of me said this ethos must exist in America – we just need to help other naturist families find one another with all these newfangled internet tools. To that end, I started a new website called Naturist Family Network, which I managed in my spare time for perhaps a year or two, mainly trying to create an online community where “real naturists” could find one another. Frustrated with the outcome, I eventually handed that off, and I’m not sure… it may still be hanging around the web someplace.

As such things do happen, our children grew up, our discretionary income increased, and our discretion to use it on ourselves changed quite dramatically. One advantage of starting a family young is still being (relatively) young when they leave home and graduate from college. As we both have an affinity for seeing as much of the world as possible, the value-added component of finding naturist places became nothing short of an obsession for me. The upside is that looking for a naturist place in Brazil, Thailand, or South Africa most definitely pulls you off the beaten path to where the real people live, and we will long cherish the conversations we’ve had with other naked travelers we’ve met there. But at the same time, we’ve stumbled into the reciprocal downside – that outside of a few European countries where nudity is a normal part of the social fabric, (Thinking Germany, France, Spain, and Croatia to name the biggies!) social nudity is at least as complicated and quirky everywhere else as it was in California thirty years ago. It some places, quite a lot more so.

Corsica, France

But alas, we continue to meander, seeking out unique travel experiences – naturist when possible, but with a good bit of exploring along the way – while documenting our travels in hopes of accomplishing two things. First, that people will come to think of naturist travel the same way they think about back-packing or ski vacations. “It may or may not be right for me, but it seems perfectly normal that other people would want to do that.” And secondly, an effort to simply normalize social nudity itself, until again people might say… that’s not a thing! In the same way that hiking or skiing is not a thing. At least, not a weird thing.

Jerolim, Croatia

There is an interesting bi-product/conundrum of keeping this blog. Now married well over thirty years, we can earnestly say that travel and naturism are most certainly defining characteristics of our life together. And because naturism is what it is, that’s been somewhat removed from the rest of our hustle-and-bustle lives. Many of our friends and colleagues know about our nakations; many others simply know we like to travel. The fact that blogging makes the private part of our life “anonymously public” is something of an oxymoron. We simply hope that in doing so, we might encourage a few others to take the leap, and join us in the crusade for making naturist travel and social nudity more mainstream and less circumspect. Like… it’s not a thing.

Just now grabbing a few minutes to get back to my blog after our recent summer naturist activity ended quite abruptly and we re-entered the clothed and work-a-day world. And thus, on to the third installment of the Nakation Chronicles, especially poignant as 2005 was our first visit to St. Martin (SXM), as well as one of our first major naturist journeys across Europe, including Croatia, Corsica, and two places in France. Looking back, I find that we didn’t take so many photos that summer devoid of full-frontal nudity. But it chronicles our naked travel, nonetheless.

La Jenny, France

La Jenny, France

La Jenny, France

Oasis, France

Valalta, Croatia

Valalta, Croatia

Happy Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Tintemarre, SXM

Tintemarre, SXM

Tintemarre, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Orient Beach, SXM

Make sure you check out the previous Nakation Chronicles installments:

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The last two years have been pretty intense, with a couple big projects that have required a lot of travel, and as a friend put it this morning, many instances where I could say “I worked two days yesterday!” That’s tricky for a blogger, given that the very nature of blogging is organized around a chronological sense of time and space. Challenging when neither is available.

I write this post from Skinny Dippers Naturist Retreat on Mallorca, which has the unusual feature of encouraging a sense of community as many (most?) of the guests gather around the dinner table each evening; where, of course, the lead-out topic of conversation is almost always, “Where have you been, and what did you think?” If that conversation takes hold, perhaps I will disclose that I am a naturist blogger, and the most enthusiastic among them will run off to grab his or her iPad to put – shall we say – a face to the name.

“So, you’ve written about this place in Hawaii? Or Greece? Or Brazil?”

“Well…” I say sheepishly, “I intended to get that done, but you know how those things go.”

But as of this writing, we are looking ahead to three more weeks of nakation, and there are few things sweeter in life than sitting naked on the veranda with a glass of wine and sharing your musings about past travel experiences. So whether you are a loyal fan of my blog, or you just stumbled in from the frustration of a web search where the term “nudist” pulled up all the images you weren’t looking for, here’s what lies ahead on the blogging agenda for the Meandering Naturist.

On the edge of the big island, Hawaii

I wrote a couple posts about our visit two summers ago to Hawaii, but never quite got around to writing about the sweet little resort called Hangin’ Loose where we lived for a week in a yurt during monsoon season – or at least, so it seemed.

The serenity of Playa Sonrisa, Mexico

And it seems that I’ve never shared much about our two visits to Playa Sonrisa, a quiet little resort so far down the Yucatan peninsula that you can (and we recommend that you do) take a daytrip by boat to Belize.

Celso. The guy from Brazil with a naturist dream

And for that matter, I was surprised to find out that I’ve left virtually no trace of our visit to naturist Brazil whatsoever, despite the drama of the story of Colina do Sol, where we met the guitar playin’ naturist Celso to learn of the perils of the naturism business in 21st-century South America. So many stories to tell about that!

Oriental Village, Thailand

Near Lemon Tree Resort, Thailand

When asked if I’ve blogged about our visits to two naturist resorts in Thailand, (Oriental Village and Lemon Tree Resort) I had to search my own archives to realize that, “Nope! Those trips are pretty much missing from our travelogue.” Which is a shame, as I’m particularly eager to promote naturism in this part of the world most suitable for naturism 365 days a year. Thailand is most definitely that place!

Walking to Tahiti Beach on Corsica

I knocked out a few posts about some of our travels last summer, but never really mused much about free-hiking on Corsica or our stay at the naturist resort Bagheera, let alone the subsequent visit to Vritomartis and a stunningly naked day on the tiny island of Gavdos – the most southerly point in Europe.

At the end of the world, on Gavdos, Greece

I did, however, do a pretty good job in keeping up with the blog during our time last winter (summer, there!) in Australia. At least, that is, until we got to the last two stops near Brisbane at BB at Byron Bay and a local legend known as BoBrene. But that often happens at the end of a long trip, when you start gearing up for reality at home, and the diary business goes out the window.

The view from the top! A naturist villa near Byron Bay, Australia

And finally, it seems I only gave a cursory glance to our long weekend at Paya Bay in Honduras, which I’ve taken to calling my new Caribbean Branch Office. Another case where we’re eager to simply get the word out about this little gem that has been flying below the radar of much of the international naturist community.

My branch office at Paya Bay, Honduras

So that’s quite a lot of catching up to do, and as I reflect, quite a lot of miles we’ve accrued in getting naked on six continents over the past two years. Seems that our pacing may slow down over the course of the next year or two as life reinvents itself, but as any blogger will tell you, the best part of the process is living the trip over through the mind’s eye. If a confirmed or would-be naturist finds the motivation in these pictures and words to book his or her own nakation, all the better for the cause, quietly hoping for the day when clothing-optional vacations are as normal as a trip to Disney World. For this meandering naturist, they are most certainly a lot more fun.

The idyllic little naturist beach on the Island of Rab, Croatia

Individual trip reports to follow in a quasi-chronological order. In the meantime, I always enjoy conversing with other naturists, so if you can’t find it in the search bar of my blog, don’t hesitate to ask Naturist Dan.

So I have made repeated mention in recent posts of my daughter and 20-something friends – mutual friends, I might add – who have become increasingly naturist-curious; a true bonanza for a long time naturist blogger who throws a small party every time he gets a new follower on his blog. This, in an age where nudism is frequently dismissed by Millennials as something my slightly deranged, post-modern hippie parents threaten to tell us about…

“Anyway, your father and I just booked on a nudist cruise to Aruba.”

“NOOOO!!!!! MOM, don’t tell me THAT stuff! Just STOP”

Day-dreaming in Croatia

It’s strange to me, really. I was a late bloomer, who wasn’t even old enough to bloom during the Summer of Love. By the time I came of age, we were in the Reagan era, California was cracking down on nude beaches, free love was under fire from the emerging religious right, and the AIDS crisis was just about to erupt on the horizon. But the bizarre part of it all to me is the dichotomy of the strange relationship 20-somethings have with immodesty. I know quite a lot of people in this age bracket, most of whom are not especially religious, don’t think twice about a one-night stand (Do we still call this casual sex?), are as likely as not to make out with a new acquaintance at a party, frequently wear seductive clothing in casual settings, but would never consider going to a nude beach or resort. What’s up with that?

What’s up with that, says this humble blogger, is that we’ve made the whole thing seem damn weird and unmanageable! Try visiting a nudist resort in the United States and it costs a fortune (Like $50 for a day visit), and only that after you submit a full FBI check to prove you’re not a sex offender or puritanical ax murderer! Go to the wrong place in Europe, and you inadvertently end up at a naked geriatric center pondering your mortality in disbelief that skin could possibly have that kind of elasticity. Turn the other direction in France, and you might find yourself in Cap d’Agde, the most infamous of naked places in the world, where your inhibitions and misconceptions about naturism will turn into a nightmarish collage of men in studded collars and lesbian sex on the beach. (I know, Cap d’Agde fans – the place can be great for naturism, but send an unsuspecting newbie there? Yikes!)

Family nakation at La Jenny

And thus, a few thoughts for the newbie naturist who finds the idea of no tan lines and swimming without wet nylon a least at bit alluring.

Leave the country! Assuming you’re reading this in the US of A, (or even in Great Britain,) you need to go someplace where people aren’t freaked out by nudity. The family naturist resorts on the southwest coast of France (La Jenny, Montalivet) are by far the most normal in terms of demographics, but they are difficult to get to, and the weather can be iffy. Croatia would be a good alternative, but the time and place means everything. If you go before school holidays, you’re back to the geriatric thing. Do your research before you go.

Go to a spa in Germany or Holland. Check out the website for information about FKK or Texteil Frei days, which for many of them is everyday. Elysium near Rotterdam or Therme Erding near Munich are particularly impressive, and draw huge numbers of young couples and singles who don’t consider themselves nudists, but don’t think twice about getting naked with others. It just feels normal.

The view over Origan naturist camping in France

Search the blogosphere for things written by naturists. A lot of it is rubbish, and you’ll know right away this is not going to be helpful. But now and again, you’ll find a blogger who gets it, knows where to go, and when to go there. Send them a message and see if they answer. I’ve found many of our favorite places that way, on the basis of personal recommendations, greatly reducing the chances that you’ll waste your time and money, while irreversibly damaging your psyche!

Read Yelp and Trip Advisor reviews before you go – not just a few, but drill down. Many people adore Gunnison Beach in New Jersey, as it’s one of the only substantial and recognized nude beaches in the entire country, but if you read enough reviews, you’ll also learn about some of the oddities of the place as well. In fact, American nude beaches have big issues with gawkers, which is pretty much a sure-fire way to get your girlfriend to say, “Never again.”

Therme Erding near Munich

Decide if you’re an “all in” or “ease in” person. “All in” means you’ll be more comfortable if everyone around you is naked, and you just need to follow suit. “Ease in” means you’re seeking a mixed crowd where nudity is permitted by not required, but also means you put it out there while others around you may not. You can usually figure that out from the aforementioned trip review sites, but it’s an important distinction.

Go high-end, or go low-end, but beware of the middle. Though a bit counter-intuitive, you either want to stay at a nice naturist hotel like Vritomartis in Greece or Heliotel in France, or find a place with lots of tent camping – not miles of trailer camping – but tent camping. Why? The places in the middle tend to attract the folks who parked their travel trailer on a plot in 1967 and haven’t budged since. Lovely people, they may be, but if you’re looking for a youthful vibe, seek out the tent campers. Check out Camp Full Monte in Montenegro, or Belezy in France. Valalta in Croatia seems to have struck a nice balance, but not so much before schools let out in early July.

Naturist camping on Corisca

Beware of naturist/nudist message boards if you want to feel normal about the whole thing. Like the blogosphere, there are some very cool people out there who have a lot of helpful information, but receiving a nude pic from a lonely guy in Atlanta is probably not the introduction to social nudity you’re looking for.

Seek out resources geared to people in your demographic. Perhaps the best one out there right now is The Young Naturists Association (YNA) run by Felicity and Jordan out of New York. They have done more to promote a positive image for social nudity than anything I’ve seen on the web for quite a long time. I have yet to attend one of their events (I’m told I’m welcome, despite the fact that I’m not quite a young naturist anymore) but from everything I’ve seen, they’ve got it right, including a blog that is thoughtful, intelligent, and informative. My guess is the people they have attracted to the cause have similar traits.

Naked feeding time in South Africa

Dunno! Perhaps there’s no rocket science to be found in this post, accept to say that a bad first foray into naturism is more often than not the last foray into naturism. We started young – just months after we were married (remember, our kids are in their 20s now!) so we’ve been at this for a while. To a large degree, our naturist travels have defined our relationship; when our naked travels have taken us to places we would never thought to have visited, where we have met people we would have never had reason to talk to.

Start young. Before you have children. Before life bogs you down. Have more questions? Ask Naturist Dan! We naturists love to advocate for our cause.

Installment number two of my attempt to chronicle our naturist travels as I go about sorting through the thousands of photos we’ve collected over the years…

Two big events in 2004: We bought a new digital camera (our first Canon Digital Rebel), and we got away for almost two weeks without the kids to explore the south of France and Corsica.

After an afternoon picnic a beach called La Bau Rouge near Toulon, we boarded the overnight ferry to Corisca, where Riva Bella became our home base, situated on a long naturist beach on the east coast of this beautiful island. That also afforded us the opportunity to visit two other naturist resorts, La Chiappa near Porto Vechhio, and U-Furu; a rustic naturist campground with a trail that leads up a small ravine to natural pools and a waterfall.

Back on the mainland, we made our first visit to Club Origan where one of the main features is a 90-minute walk along the ridges of the surrounding mountains. That became our daily workout ritual. We were also able to squeeze in a day trip to Ile du Levant – what would become the first of many in the ensuing years.